Remote Birth, Timor Leste
On 2 July 2011, Marcellina was called to assist Eliza Soares, 25, with the birth of her fifth daughter. The birthing process was far from smooth. A breech birth three hours from Timor-Leste’s capital city, Dili meant that both the young mother and baby were at serious risk of falling victim to the small South East Asian countries exceptionally high infant and maternal mortality rate. Using contemporary medical techniques while respecting the traditional environment of a home birth, Marcellina managed to correct the breech birth saving Eliza's life.
Eliza's newborn child refused to cry. After what seemed like an agonising eternity punctuated by the hushed whispering of the word 'moris?' (alive?) by Eliza's relatives, Marcellina managed to revive the infant Noleberta. Shortly after bursting into tears, Noleberta fed on her mother's milk. The tension melted, as the word 'moris' was again uttered, this time with exclamations of relief.
On 20 June 2016, I was afforded the opportunity to revisit the remote village of Asulau. Marcellina met me by the side of the dusty road, which leads through the main street. After a few kilometres down a narrow path punctuated by thatched buildings, a group of young children laughed as they played in the water draining from nearby rice paddies. As I approached, the children ran towards the thatched home by the road. Eliza welcomed me with a smile, and yelled out to Noleberta to come greet me. A grumpy young girl, whose only wish was to play with her friends, pulled faces as Eliza and I asked her to smile for a photo of three generations of women in her family. ‘Moris’, I smiled to myself.
Marcellina is one of hundreds of Timor Leste's dedicated traditional birth attendants. Every day, she walks between ten to fifteen kilometres assisting expecting and young mothers with antenatal and neonatal care in and around the remote mountainous village of Asulau. She was trained in basic contemporary birthing practices through the Dili based Bairo Pite Clinic and Japanese NGO, Frontline.